Dr. Wendy Klein

Title: Professor
Office: PSY 407
Office Hours: (Spring 2026) Mon. & Wed.: 2 - 4 pm via Zoom or by appt.
E-mail:Wendy.Klein@csulb.edu

Education:

Ph.D. in Anthropology; University of California, Los Angeles
M.A. in East Asian Studies; Stanford University
B.A. in Religion; Middlebury College

Teaching/Research Interests:

Wendy Klein is a linguistic anthropologist whose research focuses on language socialization, language ideologies, and institutional discourses that shape and reflect language policies and practices. Her interdisciplinary projects have examined the linguistic, cultural, and religious socialization of Sikh youth and the semiotics of belonging in Punjabi Sikh families; bilingual youth with autism in Japanese immigrant families; and activist, institutional, and social media discourses linked to English as the official language of the U.S.  

Geographic areas: Japan, N. India, United States. Methodological approaches: language socialization, ethnography, conversation analysis, multimodal discourse and narrative analysis.

Courses Taught:

LING/ANTH 170: Introduction to Linguistics
ANTH 412: Culture and Communication
LING/ANTH 413: Language and Culture
ANTH 418: Methods in Linguistic Anthropology
LING 425/ANTH 421: Education Across Cultures
LING 472: Language and Social Justice 
LING 477: Language Socialization
ANTH 510: Proseminar
LING 533/ANTH 530: Ethnography of Communication
LING 540: Sociolinguistics Seminar
LING 572: Seminar in Language and Social Justice

Selected Publications

2024. Autism and bilingual socialization: parents’ perspectives and youth language practices in three bilingual families. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1–16.

2021. Managing trouble spots in conversation: Other-initiated repair elicitations produced by a bilingual youth with autism. Pragmatics 31(2): 225-249.

2020. Shaping Sikh youth subjectivities in a US Gurdwara: The discursive socialization of religious heritage in Sikh history classes. In Matthew Burdelski and Kathryn Howard (Eds.), Language Socialization in Classrooms, pp. 49 – 70. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

2018. Book Review: Anthropological Perspectives on Children as Helpers, Workers, Artisans, and Laborers by David F. Lancy. American Anthropologist, 120 (3): 623-624.

2015. Responding to Bullying: Language Socialization and Religious Identification in Classes for Sikh Youth. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 14 (1):19-35.

2013 Heritage Language Socialization and Language Ideologies in a Sikh Education Program. Heritage Language Journal, 10 (1): 36-50.

2013 Housework: Collaboration and Conflict (with Carolina Izquierdo). In E. Ochs & T. Kremer-Sadlik (eds.), Fast Forward Family: Home, Work, and Relationships in Middle Class America, pp. 94-111. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also appeared in .

2013 Children and Chores in Working Families (with Marjorie Harness Goodwin). In E. Ochs & T. Kremer-Sadlik (eds.), Fast Forward Family: Home, Work, and Relationships in Middle Class America. pp. 111-130. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

2010 Interactional modalities within the division of household labor: an ethnographic study among Italian and U.S. families. (with Francesco Arcidiacono, Carolina Izquierdo, and Thomas N. Bradbury. Rivista di psicolinguistica applicata. (Journal of Applied Psycholinguistics), Vol X(1-2):85-105.

2010 Children and Chores: A Mixed-Methods Study of Children’s Household Work in Los Angeles Families (with Anthony P. Graesch and Carolina Izquierdo). Anthropology of Work Review, 30(3) December: 98-109. 

2010 Indian American Family Life. In Huping Ling and Allan W. Austin (eds.), Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

2008. Turban Narratives: Discourses of Identification and Difference among Punjabi Sikh Families in Los Angeles. In A. Reyes & A. Lo (Eds.) Toward a Linguistic Anthropology of Asian Pacific America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

2007. Klein, Wendy, Izquierdo, Carolina, and Thomas N. Bradbury. Working relationships: Communicative patterns and strategies among couples in everyday life. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 4:29-47.

Professional Activities, Awards, & Affiliations:

  • UCLA Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (2007-2009).
  • UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship (2006-2007).
  • Member of the American Anthropological Association, Society for Linguistic Anthropology, The Council on Anthropology and Education, The International Pragmatics Association, and the Society for Psychological Anthropology.